FAQ

Value-based licensing that will scale with your business.

As a multi-tenant, cloud-based SaaS provider, Lyons Information can offer flexible pricing options.  Our standard model is User-Based pricing. Our pricing approach is straightforward, predictable and easy for customers to understand; as users are added cost will increase. 

This model is great for most organizations, but we realize that this model becomes less attractive as our customers scale to thousands of users. To address this, Lyons Information offers an Enterprise License pricing model that is a single, monthly subscription fee for the use of an application(s) and is managed by a governor vs. per-user cost.  This model ensures pricing is tied to the right incremental unit of value for our customers in consideration of engagement at an enterprise level.

For specific pricing information, please contact us and one of our specialists will be happy to provide a quote based on your specific business requirements.

Yes. Any customer system that is capable of exporting information in an ASCII format may be interfaced with QATS or GradeCard^®. The automated export of information from a customer in-house system provides a periodic stream of data used by our systems. However, no physical connection is made between the in-house information system and the QATS or GradeCard^® database. This one-way flow of information insures that data integrity and synchronization always exists between both systems.

No. A common web browser is sufficient to access and use any of our systems. Of course, each user must be validated to use any of our systems through common customer security practices.

No. The databases and support files may be placed on any server that supports the Microsoft operating system architecture. Of course, with any Windows application, resources such as memory and disk space should be maximized for best performance. Cross server architectures are possible with our systems.

A standard software maintenance support contract is available for purchase each year from LYONS. The maintenance contract enables the customer to obtain telephone and email support, 24/7, and obtain free upgrades to the base product whenever they occur. Customizations to a specific solution, and requested by a customer are available.

Yes, we off all customers of any system the opportunity to become a beneficiary of any system that was purchased at a very reasonable yearly beneficiary fee paid directly to EscrowTech International located in Linden, Utah USA. www.escrowtech.com

Yes. We offer turnkey hosted web based solutions to completely manage your application and database systems. Our hosting service releases our customers from the cost and aggravation of software and system management and maintenance. Our industrial-strength service is superior in its offerings of load balanced servers, multi-fiber Internet connections, redundant DS-3 backbone connections, and high service level guarantees.

Our solutions are fully web-based. They run on Chrome/Internet Explorer/Microsoft Edge browsers as well as on mobile platforms that are readily available in work environments. A customer may choose to host our solutions from behind their data firewall, or select our hosting services for full management of the solution(s).

Our un-hosted systems are licensed to companies as a one-time sale. No recurring license fees are collected after each sale, and no restriction on the number of users (seats) exists on any of our solutions.

Users of our systems are not required to have individual database accounts. The system database is only accessed by the specific application being used. Each user has a unique account within the system which also dictates access to areas of the application, reports, etc. The management of user rights and privileges to access system information is governed by arbitrarily created user roles that are created and managed by system administrator(s) of the customer using one of our systems. Our hosted systems employ data encryption algorithms and secure socket layer (SSL) technology on our application web servers. Data is contained on separate servers away from the frontline application servers for improved security. We also support additional “layering” of security by using a customer data firewall for certification and authentication validation before accessing our hosted systems environment. Our hosted systems include data mirroring to a separate data center situated on a separate power grid and in different physical locations. See our Services Hosting Overview for more details.

A primary goal in the design architecture of our systems is to empower our customers to define and manage information that is displayed to users during the process of performing tests, entering product quality audits, and many other tasks within our systems. Basically, this means that nothing is “hard-coded” for a particular customer that would involve us to re-code or change. We remark that calls to us should only be to report a bug, or request added functionality. Of course, we are happy to respond to any support need, but our point is that we design into each system the flexibility for users to manage their information themselves.

Whether you are using any of our systems in a single laboratory or manufacturing facility or wish to expand your business reach across multiple facilities, our products are delivered with the built-in capability to expand to meet your business needs. No additional programming or modules to buy is necessary.

Best of all, there are no additional user licenses (seat licenses) to purchase or increased support costs associated with the wider reach into your business community. Our products are licensed on database instances and not upon number of users or separate facilities within your business community that use our systems.

Yes. Information interfaces may be established with any system capable of extracting and producing a fixed length ASCII text file or direct database connectivity or via REST APIs. Data is passed via JSON and synchronized in realtime to every connected client. When you build cross-platform apps with our .net, Android, iOS, and JavaScript SDKs, all of your clients share one real-time data and automatically receive updates with the newest data. You can develop applications that integrate with our API, and create robust functionality in your application using this API.

Major systems interfaced include:

• AS400
• Gerber Yunique PLM 
• Hadoop
• IBM DB2
• Informix 
• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft SQL Server
• MongoDB
• MySQL
• Optiva Formulation System (OFS)
• Oracle
• Salesforce 
• PI
• PRISM
• SAP
• Various In House systems

Additionally, our systems produce reports in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, and Microsoft CSV file formats.

Once we agree upon the enhancement(s) to be made to your system, we provide a proposal containing the cost and delivery time of the change(s). As development changes are made, our customers may view the changes using a Microsoft web browser and navigating to our secure development website specific to the customer. In this way, enhancements may be used and tested by customer staff to insure that expectations are met and satisfied. All enhancements must be sanctioned by our customer before the changes are implemented into your production environment.